What never will be

[1stmacleod]

Staying just off the Nexus makes it easier to visit, and Connor is tentatively getting familiar with the place. He's been told by a couple of people that he needs to get a PINpoint, and he's learned to reliably find the free bar. He's met a girl who wants to get some sword training from him, which is something to do, and he hasn't felt the buzz of another immortal since his first time here, and that was Ramirez.

He is almost, just barely, settling in.

Then he answers a casual question, and the woman who asked it starts to tell him about the other Connor MacLeod. The one who still has a good friend and true brother in Duncan. The one who still has Alex. And John. And Rachel. An ageless, immortal Rachel.

Connor staggers back to Kairos' house, with a box of chocolates he's supposed to give to his own Duncan along with the apology he's dreading to make. Over the past five years he's mostly pulled his mind back together. He no longer hallucinates, he has enough presence of mind to walk around in public without attracting stares. He remembers to shave at least every couple of days and shower whenever he gets a chance, and he can carry on normal conversations. He's walking a fragile edge, though.
Now his mind is swirling with the stories he's been told of a big happy family with another Connor MacLeod at the boisterous center of it all, somewhere out there not so far away. It's the most wonderful thing he could possibly dream of to know his family is happy and healthy somewhere, and the most agonizingly painful thing ever to know that it's not his family, and it never will be.
He comes into the house and pets the dogs, and puts the box of chocolates on the dresser in the guest room, and sits on the floor beside the bed with his head in his hands and shakes all over for the next few hours.

Comments

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"It's... It's okay." He smiles very weakly, and reaches to refill his own glass. "How could you have known?" He takes another gulp, right away, but that seems to steady him and he takes a slow breath, calming himself.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Yeah. I'm good at a lot of things, but psychic ability is not one of them."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"It... was Rachel. I was just across the street..." He says quietly, tone flat. "They said the bomb was in the loft above the shop, probably rigged to the phone..."

Connor takes another gulp of scotch, another deep breath, and gestures at the DVD. "No explosions in that, right? I bet it's even funnier, drunk..." He sounds grimly determined.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

((I haven't seen that movie in forever. But we can make pretend!))

"Not that I remember. Just men in tights skating together. Very manly movie, it is." Kairos will start on her third glass, feeling the need to get drunk now herself.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

((Endgame, or Blades of Glory? Because I've never seen the second...))

"Yeah... okay. Heh. I've got nothing against men in tights." Because Connor has lived through some fashions that look pretty goofy to the modern eye. Getting drunk and watching a stupid movie will keep them both distracted, at least.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

((My best friend at the time dragged me to it in the theater. I've seen...the first of Endgame, I think. Haven't seen the original yet! I need to move it up the queue! But BOG is stupid, but kind of endearing in a way. ))


"Good. To the couch, then?"

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

((Rachel getting blown up is right at the beginning. I think it's probably available in pieces on youtube...))

"Yeah..." He picks up the bottle, willing to just forget the dishes, for tonight. He's on his third glass and completely steady, but he can probably finish the bottle before the movie's over.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She'll let him do that, then, because nursing her third is about all she's good for. She doesn't want to do something in a drunken stupor that would .. make him uncomfortable being there. And she's certainly beginning to feel it.

"Mm. Sit down. I'll put it in." Which she does, sauntering over and fiddling with the machine for a minute - it's ready to be replaced, she's had it since she was around twelve - and then she returns to sit on the couch, very cognizant about how much space she's put between them. She's not hugging the opposite side of the couch, but she's careful not to sit in his lap, too.

...Now why did she go and think of that? She raises the glass to her lips.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

Connor is no help with whatever thoughts she's having, because he just flops down and sprawls, bottle in one hand and glass in the other. He's on his fourth glass by the time she sits down, and he shifts over a little to give her room, but he doesn't seem to care if she's close. He regards the TV with a brooding gaze, and drinks, while part of his mind is very far away in a dark place.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

Kairos makes herself comfortable, then, watching both the screen and him. Maybe it's the alcohol, because all of a sudden she's ... amused. "What in the world did the TV do to you to make you look at it like that?" She's got half a mind to go smack Will Ferrell's face on the screen for him.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"...What?" He blinks at her, jolted out of his glower. "I wasn't... it's just my face? Sorry. I guess part of me was thinking about other things." He looks sheepish, and refills his glass, then gestures at the TV with it. "Who are these guys? They're crazy."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"The dude with the curly hair is Will Ferrel. Funny guy. Used to be on Saturday Night Live." They had that in the eighties and early nineties, right? She thought so. "The other guy .. well, I don't think you've heard of Napoleon Dynamite."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

SNL has been around a while, and Connor used to live in New York, so he's not completely lost. "Oh... okay. He looks... young." Says the immortal in the nineteen-year-old body. "But no, sorry. I guess I'm behind the times. I... haven't been paying a lot of attention, the last five years."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Mm. Not a big deal. I understand." She pets him reassuringly. "I expect he is. We all are, compared to you. Or other long-lived people."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"You trying to make me feel old?" It's a grumble, but there's a hint of a smile as he says it. Hopefully she's learning when not to take his grumbling seriously.

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Well, if the shoe fits, mister.." She grins, posing a little. "Not all of us can be hot nineteen year olds forever." Except him apparently!

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"...Hot? I think you have me confused with Duncan..." He's flattered, though, and a little embarrassed. "It's been a long time since I felt nineteen."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Don't know this Duncan, though I guess if he's your family he's gonna be attractive too." There's that grin again. "But I was talkin' about me. And if it wasn't for the Nexus, I wouldn't be nineteen again myself."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"Let's just say when I stand next to him, I'm invisible to women." He says it with a smile, but there's a little quiet jealously there. "What do you mean 'again'? How old were you before?"

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

There's a hmph-y sound. "Okay. Kinda felt that way before my sister got married, so I'll give you that." She halfway thinks about getting her glass again or grabbing that bottle from him. "Back in... wow, has it only been February? I lost a friend of mine. Long story." One she doesn't wanna talk about, it's so embarrassing. "I ended up in the Nexus, had an episode, and when I tried to get back home I ended up going into the wrong door in my haze. The door locked, and I couldn't get home. I made some friends, and while Sav was great, I really wanted to get back to my sister. Took ten years to find another doorway. When I got back, I expected to see my sister married, Regina dead of old age, and this place sold. Only two months had passed here. My sister was 19, I was 29. It was.. unexpected." She frowns. A lot. "My sister had kept this place, and when I came here, she .. thought I was an intruder. Turned around, and we both got a shock. Fast forward a little bit, and I was in the Nexus. You'd think I woudn't come near the place anymore, but it's.. fascinating. There was this camera, and I ended up a kid for a couple of days. When it wore off, I was 19, not 29. I guess that something went wrong, but being the same age as my sister again.. it's sort of a miracle."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"I didn't think women had that problem..." Because all women are gorgeous. She's seen the photos, by now. His wife Brenda was... pretty in an average kind of way. Slightly mousy. Probably the kind of woman used to being overlooked for curvy blondes.

He blinks at her, feeling... warned, and sympathetic. This is the most specific Nexus warning he's had, and he understands the pain of being separated from family. "I'm sorry. It sounds awful... Ten years is too long for anybody." Then he gives a slow smile. "So you're really... twenty-nine? Thirty? You are an old lady."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

"Dunno about other women, but I do. I never had much stock in myself." She shrugs carelessly. "And yeah, guess I am. Twenty-nine. But I don't feel older. But.. yeah, when it comes to the Nexus, be careful of what you eat and do."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"Don't be ridiculous, you're gorgeous." He's a good halfway through the bottle now, and less than careful about what he says. "Somebody warned me about that though. The eating in the Nexus. But I drank the scotch there just fine. Wasn't as good as this, though."

[kairos-aether.livejournal.com]

She's actually not going to verbalize the, "Wait. You think I'm gorgeous?!" thought that's currently taken up residence in her brain, but instead she tries to concentrate on the Nexus part of his statement. Her flabbergasted look and the blush might clue him in, though. "Mm. I think it depends on where it comes from. There's restaurants and bars and stuff there, and even whole neighborhoods. But I wouldn't just drink and eat food from people I don't know or trust." Just take pictures of herself from a weird camera. "I think that's the difference."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

She may be crediting him with paying more attention than he is. He's busy finishing his current glass. "It... was a bar. In the middle of the question area? Anyway, nothing strange has happened yet. At first I thought I was hallucinating the place, anyway."